


The Things We Do For Love

by DesireeArmfeldt



Category: due South
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Gift Fic, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-27
Updated: 2014-12-27
Packaged: 2018-03-03 20:59:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2887730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesireeArmfeldt/pseuds/DesireeArmfeldt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kowalski's in a snit; good thing Vecchio's on the job.  (Also, relationships are hard.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Things We Do For Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Scribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scribe/gifts).



> Could be a sequel to [Taking Turns](%E2%80%9D), or a standalone.
> 
> Originally written for Scribe's [fandom_stocking](http://fandom_stocking.dreamwidth.org).

Vecchio finds Kowalski hiding out in the garage, like he figured. Good sign, all in all. If it’d been the boxing gym, he’d be more worried. Kowalski’s under the GTO with just his boots showing. Vecchio walks as noisy as he can, to give the guy some warning he’s got company, but who knows what Kowalski can hear past the pinging and thunking?

He gives the sole of Kowalski’s boot a soft kick, gets a grunt in response but nothing else. After a couple minutes, he squats down next to the GTO, makes himself more or less comfortable. Being pretty sure how this was going to go down, he changed before he came here, into clothes he doesn’t mind getting dirty.

After another little while, Kowalski sticks a grubby hand out between the wheels and says, “Socket wrench,” so Vecchio hands it to him, which earns him another grunt.

They do that for a while, that working-in-silence-with-occasional-tool-passing thing that guys do, until Vecchio figures he’s established enough rapport to try some actual words.

“You know there’s nothing sexier than a guy working on a car, right?” He nudges Kowalski’s foot with his toe.

It’s hard to tell with the car in the way, but he thinks Kowalski’s grunt sounds startled this time. Maybe a little amused too; Vecchio should be so lucky.

“That why you got into building cars?” he goes on, teasing voice to go with the smile Kowalski can’t see. “‘Cause you were into guys who build cars?”

“No,” comes Kowalski’s voice back at him: curt, with that metallic reverb like he’s talking through a tin can. “I just like cars, jackass.”

Vecchio’s long since learned not to take personally most of the stuff that comes out of Kowalski’s mouth.

“Hey, me too,” he says, nice and easy, “All I’m saying is, I know who I’d rather cuddle up to.”

That brings Kowalski sliding out from under the GTO and rolling to his feet. He’s bare-chested and streaked with sweat and grease, and somehow he’s even managed not to totally flatten his hair while he was lying under there. Before Vecchio started this thing with Fraser and Kowalski, he would have said that grease monkeys were totally not his cup of tea, but apparently that’s one of those rules that were made to be broken.

Unfortunately, right this minute, Kowalski’s not doing that cocky swagger thing that drives Vecchio nuts. He’s scowling like he’d rather punch Vecchio than make out with him.

Vecchio sighs as he gets to his feet.

“Fraser send you?” Kowalski asks belligerently.

“Nah, he thinks grown men don’t sulk. So whattaya say we keep him in blissful ignorance?” Vecchio smiles big to make it impossible to miss that he’s teasing, but Kowalski just glowers more fiercely.

“Figures. He doesn’t even have to ask, and here you are, doing the dirty work.”

That’s a low blow; Kowalski knows how Vecchio feels about being called Fraser’s errand-boy.

“Hey, Fraser’s not the one acting like a five-year-old today,” Vecchio snaps, before he can remind himself that he didn’t come here to let Kowalski pick a fight.

“Anything for Fraser,” Kowalski sneers, still off on his own rant. “Why don’t you just get it tattooed on your ass, make it official?”

Vecchio takes a deep breath, calling up his current go-to image for when he needs to not ring the man’s neck: Kowalski conked out with his face in Vecchio’s lap after a particularly competitive exchange of blowjobs.

“’Cause I hate needles,” he says, as smoothly as he can. “Anyway, I’d have to put your name on the other cheek.”

Kowalski flashes him a wide-eyed hopeful look and then drops his head, hunching in on himself. Vecchio wants to cuddle him and slap him silly, both at the same time. Where the hell does Kowalski get off, not _knowing_ that by now? Except, Vecchio knows exactly where, because he’s visited that particular bus stop a time or two, himself.

“Wouldn’t want you to mess up your sensitive skin on my account,” Kowalski mutters to his shoes.

“Oh no?” Time to press his advantage. “‘Cause you may not share Benny’s fetish for dropping me into dumpsters in my best clothes, but I seem to remember you thinking that thing with the sparkly blue lube was pretty hilarious. And that time with the hot fudge sauce, that was your idea.”

He leans into Kowalski’s space; Kowalski doesn’t look up, but he doesn’t squirm away either.  

“Yeah, I’d say you don’t have any problem with getting me all messy and dirty,” Vecchio concludes.

“You don’t like it, all you have to do is—”

“Don’t be a moron.”

“Screw you,” Kowalski retorts, but now it mostly just sounds like his usual reflexive bickering.

“Hey,” says Vecchio with a smile. “If angry sex over the hood of your car is what it takes to get your head out of your ass, I’m game.”

God love Kowalski, a look flashes across his face like he’s actually tempted.

“Don’t do me any favors,” he grumbles.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Which is mostly true. Kowalski’s grease-monkey appeal aside, they’ve never actually done it on either of their cars, or even _in_ the car, and honestly it wouldn’t be that comfortable. Not that Vecchio hasn’t done plenty of stupider things because he can’t resist Kowalski when he gets enthusiastic. (Or Fraser. Or both of them. Never let it be said that Vecchio doesn’t have a type.)

But it’s not time for makeup sex yet. Kowalski’s ready to be convinced, but he needs another whack with the clue brick to get him there.

“Look,” says Vecchio, rummaging through the clutter on the workbench. “I wasn’t kidding about the needles, but you want to put your name on my ass? Go right ahead.”

He hands Kowalski a Sharpie.

“Very funny—”

“No joke.” Vecchio unbuckles his belt, unbuttons and unzips his pants. “Your name on one side, Fraser’s on the other. That’s the deal.” His slacks hit the floor (he _knew_ he was going to end up with crud on them, one way or another), and he braces his hands on the GTO’s hood. “G’wan. Have a ball.”

Kowalski’s looking back and forth between the pen in his hand and Vecchio’s bare ass and Vecchio’s face, like someone just asked him to cut down the tallest tree in the forest with a herring, or maybe like he thinks Candid Camera’s going to jump out of the backseat of the GTO.

“Come on,” Vecchio says. “I’m not gonna stand here with my nuts swinging in the breeze all day.”

“I don’t know, you make quite the picture, there.” And, score! That’s Kowalski’s flirting voice—one of them, anyway. Vecchio wonders whether he’s doing it on purpose. Either way, it’s good news.

The Sharpie feels weird on his skin, and the first line Kowalski tries to draw feels like it bumps and skips all over the place. Then Kowalski lightens up the pressure, and that apparently does the trick, because after that it’s smooth lines and curves that Vecchio can only barely feel, like Kowalski’s tickling him with a feather. He can’t actually ‘read’ the letters Kowalski’s putting there, but he knows damn well what the pause means.

“Go on, do the other one. Don’t want to be lopsided.”

“Yeah, wouldn’t that be a crime against fashion?” says Kowalski, but he scrawls his name—Vecchio assumes—on Vecchio’s other ass-cheek.

When he’s done, he rests his hands on Vecchio’s shoulders, keeping him from standing up right away. His unshaven face presses against the small of Vecchio’s back, prickly and warm and a little damp. For a second, Vecchio wonders if Kowalski really is planning to do him over the hood of the car after all.

But no. Kowalski straightens up and smacks him lightly on the ass.

“Okay, all done. My turn.”

Pulling up his pants, Vecchio looks in surprise at Kowalski, who’s unbuttoning his ragged, grease-stained jeans. He sounded almost cheerful, there, and now he flashes Vecchio a smile to match and bends over the GTO without hesitating.

Vecchio stands there gaping until Kowalski looks up and catches him at it.

“What?” Kowalski asks.

“Nothing,” says Vecchio quickly. “Go on and spread ‘em.”

“You gotta go real lightly,” says Kowalski as he does just that. “Otherwise the pen sticks.”

“Right. I’ll keep that in mind.”

In fact, it does turn out to be harder than Vecchio would have thought to write neatly on Kowalski’s ass, especially because Kowalski’s ticklish and can’t hold still. But he manages a legible _Benton Fraser_ on one cheek and _Raymond Vecchio_ on the other. It’s completely ridiculous, but Vecchio can’t help grinning as he thinks about the smile Kowalski gave him just now, and about how hilarious the look on Fraser’s face is going to be when he gets a load of this. And at the same time. . .okay, so Vecchio has kind of a thing for Kowalski’s tattoo, and the idea of Kowalski getting another one—not their names, that would be tacky—but something for him and Fraser, for the three of them. . .that thought just does something to him.

He kisses the back of Kowalski’s neck, then decides to do him one better and lays a trail of kisses down his spine, all the way to his tailbone. By the time he gets there, Kowalski is shifting his weight from one foot to the other and breathing hard enough for Vecchio to hear.

Vecchio leans over Kowalski’s back to murmur in his ear, “You change your mind about the sex on the car thing? ‘Cause I could do you right here, right now. That what you want?”

Kowalski moans between his teeth. Vecchio licks his ear to feel him shiver. But when Vecchio slides his hand down over Kowalski’s hip, Kowalski goes all tense and shakes his head.

“No. I mean, yeah, but no. Not. . .”

Vecchio takes his hand off Kowalski and stands there looking down at his back, waiting to hear what the end of that sentence is going to be.

“Sometimes I just hate it, you know?” Kowalski mumbles, like he can’t make up his mind if he wants Vecchio to hear him or not.

“Hate what?” Vecchio asks. Getting Kowalski to talk about his feelings is mostly Fraser’s job, not Vecchio’s, but Vecchio at least knows how to listen.

“The deal,” says Kowalski. Vecchio’s heart lurches, but before he can seriously panic, Kowalski hastily adds, “I mean, I’m good with it, I don’t want to change anything. I just.”

“Yeah, I know,” Vecchio says quietly, because he does.

“Don’t tell Fraser.”

“Newsflash, Kowalski: he’s not stupid.”

“Yeah, I know, but don’t.”

“Okay.” Vecchio squeezes Kowlaski’s shoulder. “But you gotta make nice with him tonight, all right? Let him know you’re not pissed at him.”

“Hey, I’ve got his name written on my ass, that’s gotta count for something, right?” Kowalski gives him a game try at a smile.

Vecchio grins back and punches him on the shoulder.

“You are almost as big a nutbar as Fraser, you know that?”

“Hey, can you see Fraser offering to let you write on his ass with a marker?” Kowalski asks as he puts up his dukes and fakes a duck-and-weave.

“Sure. . .but probably only if it was for a case,” says Vecchio.

Kowalski sniggers. “Think we can convince him it’s an American custom?”

“It’s worth a shot,” says Vecchio as he slings an arm over Kowalski’s shoulders and steers him out the door.


End file.
